Chicago Cubs vs. Atlanta Braves preview, Sunday 6/19, 1:20 CT

Sunday notes...

WILLSON!: Willson Contreras, last 21 games since May 26: .325/.426/.663 (26-for-80) with six doubles, seven home runs and 16 runs scored. That’s 18.1 percent of all Cubs runs since May 26. He’s currently on a six-game hitting streak.

MORE WILLSON: Saturday, Willson and WiIliam Contreras became the first brothers to start at catcher in the same game since Yadier and Jose Molina, June 10, 2014. (H/T: Elias Sports Bureau)

IT DOESN’T COMPUTE: Despite going 2-10 over their last 12 games (and being outscored 93-37 in that span), the Cubs had leads in nine of the 12 games.

TODAY’S OPPONENT: The Cubs have already won their first series against the Braves at Wrigley Field since 2017 and could sweep them at Wrigley for the first time since 2015 (they also swept them in Atlanta in 2017). The Braves haven’t lost three in a row this year.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Braves lineup:

Translation:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Ian Anderson, RHP

Kyle Hendricks had a nice outing in his last start against the Padres. Here’s hoping he can build on that.

He faced the Braves twice last year. You do not want to look at the boxscores, and I am not posting the links here. Trust me on this one. Here’s hoping today is a LOT better.

Ian Anderson was the Braves’ No. 1 pick (third overall) in 2016 and was on Top 100 prospect lists through his entire minor league career. He had a solid year in 2021, but this year has not been as good, and his last five starts in particular have been rough: 6.18 ERA, 1.627 WHIP, .303 opponents BA.

Anderson threw seven one-hit innings against the Cubs April 27, 2021, but those were the pre-selloff Cubs. Maybe this team can do better! No current Cub has more than six plate appearances against Anderson.

Statcast

Statcast

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here’s a list of providers currently carrying Marquee.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Braves site Battery Power. If you do go there to interact with Braves fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

The 2022 Game Thread procedure will be like last years, similar to what we’ve used for Spring Training.

You’ll find the game preview posted separately on the front page two hours before game time (90 minutes for some early day games following night games).

At the same time, a StoryStream containing the preview will also post on the front page, titled “Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of week/date) game threads.” It will contain every post related to that particular game, including the First Pitch Thread and the overflow thread, as well as the recap when it’s published. The recap will also live on the front page as a separate post.

You will also be able to find the preview, First Pitch Thread and the overflow thread in the box marked “Chicago Cubs Game Threads” at the bottom of the front page (you can also find them in this section link). The StoryStream for each game can also be found in that section.

The First Pitch thread will post at five minutes before game time, then an overflow thread at 90 minutes after the scheduled game time.

Discuss amongst yourselves.